CFP Crime Fiction and the Global Challenges of the Twenty-First Century

 

Monash University, Melbourne / Hybrid 25-27 June 

Crime fiction has long since refuted the assumption that its socio-political engagement is somehow not genuine – that it tends to reduce “social problems to so much local colour or authenticating detail” (John Sutherland). Nordic Noir, in particular, is often lauded for its analysis of Scandinavian welfare and gender politics, yet the critical orientation is prominent in contemporary world crime fiction more broadly. Using the nexus of crime and investigation as its lens, the genre is increasingly defined by abandoning the idea of local and containable criminality in favour of a conception of individual crime as a manifestation of larger global challenges such as gender-based violence, economic inequality, climate change, migration, Indigenous rights and the crisis of democracy. Given this orientation towards the key challenges of our time, it is no exaggeration to say that world crime fiction today, like the nineteenth-century realist novel according to Georg Brandes, is defined by its determination to “place problems under debate”.

The conference will focus on crime fiction and the global challenges of the twenty-first century. While this topic allows a new critical assessment of individual crime novels, it also has broader ramifications for our understanding of the crime genre and its global distribution and impact. On the one hand, it enables an examination of how crime fiction’s socio-political engagement requires a revision of classic tropes, for example due to the emerging non- individualistic conception of victimhood and culpability. On the other hand, it opens up opportunities for a new comparative approach to crime fiction focusing on the ways in which shared global issues are dealt with by authors in different countries and regions.

Papers at the conference will examine the global socio-political engagement of crime fiction from a broad range of perspectives, drawing on examples from across the world. We particularly welcome abstracts dealing with one of the previously identified challenges and offering comparative readings of literary texts from different countries and regions. We also welcome papers that reinterpret earlier crime narratives in light of the genre’s contemporary socio-political engagement.

Topics may include, but are not limited to: 

• Crime fiction and the climate emergency 
• Crime fiction and the crisis of democracy 
• Crime fiction and economic inequality 
• Crime fiction and gender and sexual freedom 
• Crime fiction and migration 
• Crime fiction and war 
• Crime fiction and gender-based violence
• Crime fiction and global capitalism 
• Crime fiction and extractive economies 
• Crime fiction and new forms of totalitarianism 
• Post-truth crime fiction 
• First Nations Crime fiction 
• Non-political crime fiction 
• Comparative perspectives on world crime fiction 

Please submit your 250-word abstracts for 20-minute presentations and proposals for panels and a short bio-note (about 100 words) via this form. Submissions are due on 15 December 2024. For postgraduate students and ECRs, a workshop will be held on 24 June before the conference proper begins. If you need an immediate response to apply for funding, please indicate this in your application form. 

Please address any questions to: CaptivatingCriminality@monash.edu

New Edinburgh University Press Journal Crime Fiction Studies.

Call for Papers: Crime Fiction Studies 

Volume 1, Issue 1: Why Crime Fiction Today?

We are delighted to announce the call for papers for the first issue of our brand-new Edinburgh University Press journal Crime Fiction Studies. Arising out of Bath Spa University’s very successful Captivating Criminality conferences, organised by Fiona Peters, and the establishment of the International Crime Fiction Association in 2016, this journal is the first British university press journal focussing on the broad field of crime fiction studies. Crime Fiction Studies will be the newest addition to EUP’s stable of prestigious journals, and two issues will be published both in print and online each year. The inaugural issue will set the agenda for discussion of the most pressing issues in contemporary crime fiction studies, providing space for reflection on the ways in which this hugely popular, rapidly developing, and extremely influential genre – and the field of study itself – is changing in the twenty-first century. In the issues that follow, we will be encouraging exploration of diverse aspects of this increasingly important field of cultural production. As editors we believe that there is a real need for a new journal in this area to encourage high-calibre research, engender debate, and forge new directions in crime fiction studies.

We are thus asking for abstracts for the inaugural issue of Crime Fiction Studies that provide thought-provoking, innovative answers to the question ‘why crime fiction today?’ We expect contributions to be theoretically and critically informed, and to engage with current scholarly debates in the field.

Possible areas of focus for the first issue include, but are not limited to:

• True crime

• Gender and queer studies

• New approaches to historical crime fiction

• Crime fiction and science

• Crime fiction in the digital age

• Fandom and fan culture

• Generic and cultural status of crime fiction

• Crime fiction on screen

• New forms of crime fiction

• Ethnicity and crime fiction

• Re-Imagining classic/historic crime 

• Detectives and detection in the twenty-first century

Abstracts of 400 words are due by 31 January 2019 and finished articles of 7500 words will be due by 1 July 2019. This issue will be published in 2020.

Please send abstracts and a biographical statement of 150 words to the editors; Fiona Peters (editor), Eric Sandberg (assistant editor) and Ruth Heholt (assistant editor) using the email address: crimefictionstudies@gmail.com.

The International Crime Fiction Association Book Prize 2018

The ICFA is delighted to announce a prestigious new annual book prize. The prize will recognise ingenuity, innovation, and scholarship in the academic study of crime fiction and crime writing in its widest sense. 

Monographs and edited collections can be nominated by publishers, members of the association, and authors.

There will be one winner who will receive £100 plus a write up from the independent judges which can be used for publicity purposes. 

Shortlisted books will also receive comments from the judges which can be used for publicity purposes.

The winner and the shortlisted authors will be announced at our 2019 conference.

The competition is open to any monograph or edited collection, published in 2018, on the academic study of crime fiction and crime writing in its broadest sense.

For more information, or to nominate a book please contact j.parsons1@bathspa.ac.uk.